Saad Hariri was born on April 18, 1970 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He majored in Business Administration graduating from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in 1992. He then returned to Riyadh to manage part of his father’s business. The source of the family wealth is from Saudi Oger, a family construction company that was able to take advantage of the petrodollar boom in Saudi Arabia.

The death of his father in 2005 led him to inheriting around $4.2 billion. The Hariri family collectively is worth around $9.6 billion making them one of the richest families in the Middle East and the world for that matter. His father’s death would have led to transition in business leadership but his father was not an ordinary businessman. To begin with while Saad was born in Saudi Arabia he is also a Lebanese national.

His father Rafiq Hariri was the prime minister of Lebanon for a total of 10 years. Saad’s death was also violent dying in a bombing assassination on February 14, 2005. With the death of his father business wasn’t the only concern of Saad. He became the head of the Movement of the Future, this is basically a Sunni movement that was established and led by his father. Saad is also the leader of the March 14 Alliance. This is a political group coalition that came out of the Cedar Revolution which led to the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005 after a 29 year presence.

Saad like his father also became prime minister of Lebanon from 2009 to 2011. A UN Special Tribunal named four Hezbollah leaders responsible for the assassination of his father. His term as prime minister ended when Hezbollah members of his coalition government resigned over his endorsement of the tribunal’s verdict. Saad believes that that the assassination stemmed from orders of President Assad of Syria. Saad is one of the harshest the critics of the current Syrian regime and has been accused of arming the Syrian opposition.

For security reasons he and his family live in Saudi Arabia while other members of the Hariri family live abroad mostly in France.